Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Self-Lubrication Improves Standard Braking Systems
By mixing carbon fibers into polymer-based brakes, researchers designed brakes that are self-lubricating. These new and improved brakes can prevent wear-and-tear and have better frictional...
Articles: Motion Control
Understanding the Basics of Gas Spring Application
When choosing a gas spring for a particular application, it’s imperative to have a basic understanding of the workings and terminology used when specifying gas springs. This article offers...
Application Briefs: Motion Control
Keck Telescopes Get a Motion Control Upgrade
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii Island is surrounded by thousands of miles of thermally stable seas. The 13,796-foot Maunakea mountain summit has no nearby ranges to roil the upper...
Briefs: Transportation
Directly Cooled Electric Motor Made from Polymer Materials
Making electric cars lighter also involves reducing the weight of the motor. One way to do that is by constructing it from fiber-reinforced polymer materials. A new cooling concept...
Products: Power
New Products: April 2019 Motion Design
ABB (Zurich, Switzerland) introduced the ABB Ability™ smart sensor that enables health checks for bearings. The smart sensor technology provides an early indicator of...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Synthesizing Renewable Oils for Use in Lubricants
Industrial machinery, agricultural equipment, transportation vessels, and home applications depend on lubricants; however, they leave a heavy environmental footprint. Common lubricants, oils,...
Briefs: Medical
Technique Provides Rapid Assessment of Radiation Exposure
Researchers have developed a new technique that assesses radiation exposure in about an hour using an insulator material found in most modern electronics. The technique can be used to triage medical cases in the event of a radiological disaster.
Briefs: Materials
Thin, Durable Heating Patches
Thin, durable heating patches were created using intense pulses of light to fuse tiny silver wires with polyester. Their heating performance is nearly 70 percent higher than similar patches. The inexpensive...
Texas A&M professor Jaime Grunlan and his team are developing a new flame-retardant coating using renewable, nontoxic materials readily found in nature that...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Material Captures and Removes Toxic Atmospheric Gas
A metal-organic framework (MOF) material was developed that exhibits a selective, fully reversible, and repeatable capability to remove nitrogen dioxide gas from the atmosphere in ambient...
Briefs: Energy
Novel Dielectric Ceramic by Spark Plasma Sintering
Researchers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a new dielectric material based on barium titanate nanopowder processed via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The rapid and...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Skin-Like Sensor Maps Blood-Oxygen Levels
A new type of oximeter — or blood-oxygen sensor — is made of organic electronics printed on bendable plastic that molds to the contours of the body. Unlike fingertip oximeters, it can detect...
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Regional Hydrologic Extremes Assessment System (RHEAS) Software
Drought is Africa’s principal type of natural disaster and is at the core of serious threats to the livelihoods of millions of people and the natural resources on which they depend. The economies of many African countries are based on agricultural activities that are controlled...
Recent technical advances have enabled flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) to become more compact and able to support higher-power applications. Due to their proven...
Briefs: Materials
Using Common WiFi to Detect Weapons, Bombs, and Chemicals in Bags
Ordinary WiFi can easily detect weapons, bombs, and explosive chemicals in bags at museums, stadiums, theme parks, schools, and other public venues using a low-cost suspicious...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Fabric Alternative to Batteries for Wearable Devices
Wearable biosensors for health monitoring lack a lightweight, long-lasting power supply. A new method was developed for making a charge-storing system that is easily integrated into...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
New Material Provides Enhanced Tactility for Soft Sensors
Flexible and wearable sensors measure and track body motion, a task made more complex by the human anatomy’s numerous potential contortions. For a wearable sensor to work properly,...
Briefs: Energy
Rechargeable, High-Temperature, Molten Salt Battery
Growing demand for electric vehicles and more sustainable forms of transport means finding new forms of energy storage such as batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells. Currently, a major...
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Plastic-Degrading Enzyme
Eight million metric tons of plastic waste, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, enter the oceans each year, creating huge manmade islands of garbage. Experts estimate that by 2050, there will be as much waste plastic in the ocean by mass as there are fish. A bacterium, Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, can...
Application Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Laser Measurement Sensors Solve High-Speed Package Profiling
Plymouth, MN
www.bannerengineering.com
Sorting parcels and packages prior to delivery is an essential step in shipping and handling. Order...
Articles: Transportation
Electric Vehicle Fast Chargers Present Some Overlooked Circuit Protection Challenges
The first mass-produced electric vehicles (EVs) hit the road late in 2010 with the introduction of the Nissan Leaf, which remains the world’s top-selling,...
Application Briefs: Materials
Metal 3D Printing for Complex Heat Exchangers
West Dundee, IL
www.renishaw.com
HiETA develops metal additive manufacturing (AM) methods for the production of complex, lightweight structures for heat management...
Briefs: Communications
Wearable Devices Allow Direct Communication by Touch
Emergency situations such as trying to escape heavy smoke from fire could leave the sense of touch as the only way to find an exit. Rather than trying to look at a smartphone screen, a...
Briefs: Materials
Metallic Hollow Nanoparticle Fabrication
NASA Langley Research Center has developed new methods for fabricating hollow nanoparticles using dendrimer molecules. Dendrimers are used as templates to control the size, stability, and solubility...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Extrans Permeation Measurement System
Many applications in science and industry require an apparatus that creates a controlled amount of a fluid introduced into another fluid. For instance, some material corrosion testing applications...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Multiplexing of Wireless Surface Acoustic Wave Sensors
The traditional approach for wireless sensors involves interrogators that communicate with each other (i.e., the two boxes “talk” to each other). In contrast, surface acoustic wave...
Facility Focus: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Facility Focus: Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute was founded in the early part of the 20th century as a charitable trust focused on research in metallurgy and allied industries. Founder Gordon Battelle studied...
5 Ws: Energy
5 Ws of the Heart Energy Harvester
Millions of people who rely on pacemakers, defibrillators, and other livesaving implantable devices powered by batteries that need to be replaced every five to 10 years.
Briefs: Materials
In-Situ Selective Reinforcement of Near-Net-Shape Formed Structures
NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a method in which a metal matrix composite (MMC) material is incorporated into a metallic structure during a one-step...
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